What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

January 2nd, 2007, 20:06

A few days ago Iīve watched the restaured version of Spartacus. I hadnīt seen it for years. Itīs one of the rare movies who get better over time. Olivier as Crassus and Laughton as Gracchus are phenomenal. The attention to detail on almost every set is unbelievable. Last time I enjoyed Spartacusī adventure, this time it seemed to be only a device to show Romeīs descent from republic to dictatorship.

"Rest Stop"
One of the most truly idiotic films I have ever seen, and I have a huge amount of tolerance when it comes to bad films.This film has no excuse whatsoever for being as bad as it is, except for an idiotic script and director. This film had the money, the technology, the time, and the eye-candy to be good. It's a simple premise for a film, nigh impossible to screw up. "Rest Stop" is one big screw up.

It's expected that when a movie begins with a road trip, there will be an almost mandatory music video montage. Acoustic guitar will play, scenes of the happy travelers cruising along in their car past farms, cities, etc. will play out. They will fumble with the radio and make silly faces, smoke dope, laugh etc. The director chose to up that count a bit, and as a result several times in this film the viewer is sitting around watching what is effect a meaningless music video. Even worse, the music sucks.

Now horror movie protagonists are not known for their intelligence, we all know this, but when the viewer is absolutely flogged with idiocy it's very hard to play dumb ourselves.

- near-dead policeman lays at your feet, victim of the killer. The killer is ambling around like a drunken fool before you. Do you grab the policeman's gun? Do you perhaps grab the policemans radio? Not this idiot.

- The killer's vehicle is before you, empty with keys inside. Do you jump in and flee? Not this idiot.

- You have a deranged lunatic on your trail. You find a bottle of whiskey. Do you get so plowed that you finally pass out? This idiot chose to do so.

Im sorry, there's just no excuse for the sheer stupidity of the central character of this film, other than a reason to draw the film out.The entire movie itself should have been boiled down, cut in half. The lead character is a stupid, whiny poltroon that had no right to survive the ordeal as long as she did. The killer, an incompetent moron. And the stupid, almost randomly inserted "wacky backwoods family" was an utterly lame attempt to portray something like a Texas Chainsaw type backwoods brood. Unfortunately, they have none of the realistic panache that makes the aforementioned hicks from hell so memorable. There's some ok gore, but I can say without a doubt that it isnt worth sitting thru the rest of this absolutely tedious film. Thank God I only rented it

"The Descent"
Now this baby was worth the rental. A multitude of Lara Croft wannabes go caving and discover a race of CHUDs. That is, Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers, for those who didnt grow up in the 80's. This film was good in many ways, one being that the suspense wasnt limited to just the monster encounters, the actual climbing and caving stuff the women go thru had me biting my nails!

I rant and rave about the bad movie, and give a little blurb about the good film, I know. It's late. Trust me, Descent is a decent film that you wanna see if you like a good old suspenseful monster movie.

Well, I guess this is finally the last of the horror community's "must see" big releases of 2007. My opinion? Meh, it was alright.

Im not saying that Hard Candy isnt good, Hayley's dialogue absolutely ranks in the top Ive heard all year. She's funny, deadly serious, slightly off her rocker, and she's ultimately right. She's detective, judge, and executioner, a little pixie of doom. Unfortunately, Hard Candy is in a way a one-trick pony. The entire second half of the film is a one-sided ordeal, and it simply grows tiresome after a while. Not fast-forward tiresome, but ho-hum.

The film would have been better served had Jeff gotten the upper hand and reversed roles, he had the opportunity. Have her wake up tied to the chair, now his prisoner, this now-crazed man on the brink. Her bid for escape would have been totally thrilling. She made the call to his ex, have Janelle knock on the door during this, the distraction she needs to wiggle thru the proverbial ropes. Perhaps even have some real ambiguity regarding his guilt, instead of laying it all out so soon. Maybe Hayley is just freakin nuts after all? Maybe he is truly innocent?

The film was too repetitive, and cut and dry for it's own good. Worth the rental, but not a purchase IMHO.

I saw Descent at the theatre. While it was nothing groundbreaking, it was quite entertaining. The DVD version would actually be better to see because you can view both endings. (NA and Europe were different)

I manage a movie theatre, and oddly enough, because of that, I watch LESS films than I used to because I'm so busy all the time! Though I've been contemplating getting a portable DVD player so I can catch up on stuff while I'm working at my desk. Hmm, I seem to have had enough time to kill this morning that I posted 4 times here… of course, it gets busy later in the day when I would LIKE to be gaming, reading or watching films.
The last films I saw were the new David Lynch film "Inland Empire" which, despite my falling asleep twice during (3 hours!), I quite liked; and "Pan's Labyrinth" which is the first film that has made me get choked up with tears at the end for a very long time. Beautiful, tragic, and brutal.
I'm planning on re-watching Miyazaki's Nausicaa movie soon, as my girlfriend hasn't seen it. We're working our way through all the Miyazaki films in no particular order.

Im going to see Pan's Labyrinth pretty soon w/ some friends, I cant wait for that one. Guillermo Del Toro is generally a pretty good director.

Ive been busy lately, so havent watched too many flicks. Caught two good old detective flicks called "The Girl Hunters", and "Murder, My Sweet". Both pretty good, tho the latter tended to drag on about a half hour longer than it needed to be.

Last film I viewed was The Saragossa Manusript which is this amazing Polish film from 1965 telling a story of stories or nested stories of a matryoshka doll. A captain of the Walloon Guard, of Napoleon's armies, discovers a text that tells the adventures of his father. Unwittingly, he travels through the text learning about more adventures than one person's life could hold.

I actually preferred the first one. I found all the extra bonus stuff on the DvD's quite interesting!! I was intrigued by how much they tried to avoid CGI as much as possible, and how much they used real actors to enhance the CGI they did use!!

As most of the time, I expected nothing out of Pirates when I first saw it because I hadn't followed the hype at all. I was pleasantly surprised. I also liked the second one, though I liked the first part better - it was as zany, but didn't feel as contrived as PotC2. Though I have to admit that I liked the cuddly sea monsters.

I saw the 2005 version of Mel Brooks' 'The Producers' only recently, and I'm still laughing .